Captured Generals Expanded

Captured Generals Expanded (CGE) expands Hearts of Iron IV's captured-general gameplay into a persistent prisoner-management system. Captured commanders are tracked in a custom interface and can be pressured, interrogated, tried, executed, recruited, or used to organize POW formations. When a war ends, CGE also resolves prisoners and recruited collaborators from the defeated country, including optional country restoration and military-governor events.

Requirements

• Hearts of Iron IV 1.19.*

The mod descriptor is in descriptor.mod.

Main features

• Persistent captured-general registry with saved stats, traits, portraits, origin country, and capture state.
• Sortable captured-general list and detailed prisoner overview UI.
• Two main prisoner values: Patience and Cooperation.
• Timed prisoner operations with costs, success/failure branches, history, and country modifiers.
• Four-stage trial event chain with public, military, and plea-agreement routes.
• Execution and recruitment events.
• POW recruitment pools derived from casualties inflicted on each origin country.
• Recruiter assignment and dynamically created POW divisions.
• Postwar repatriation and recruited-general fate events.
• Restoration request from one randomly selected recruited officer when their annexed homeland can be restored.
• Military-governor selection for restored or otherwise subject postwar governments.

Documentation

• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md — how the systems fit together.
• docs/GAMEPLAY_SYSTEMS.md — player-facing mechanics, costs, requirements, and outcomes.
• docs/POSTWAR_SYSTEM.md — peace detection, restoration requests, governor selection, and recruited-general fates.
• docs/DATA_MODEL.md — slots, variables, flags, event targets, and arrays.
• docs/UI_AND_CONTENT.md — scripted GUI, interface files, localisation, portraits, and generated registries.
• docs/CODE_REFERENCE.md — file-by-file and effect/event/trigger reference.
• docs/DEBUGGING.md — useful log messages and places to inspect when a flow fails.

High-level runtime flow

flowchart TD
    A[Enemy deployed leader defeated] --> B[on_deployed_leader_defeated]
    B --> C[cge_register_capture]
    C --> D[Snapshot character into numbered CGE slot]
    D --> E[Captured-generals UI]
    E --> F[Patience / Cooperation operations]
    F --> G{Outcome}
    G -->|Recruit| H[General joins captor]
    G -->|Recruit POWs| I[Unlock origin-country POW pool]
    G -->|Execute| J[Execution event/news]
    G -->|Still prisoner| E
    H --> K[Postwar watcher]
    I --> K
    K --> L[War with origin ends]
    L --> M[Postwar origin queue]
    M --> N[Repatriate ordinary prisoners]
    N --> O{Origin exists?}
    O -->|No, restorable| P[Random recruited officer requests restoration]
    P -->|Accept| Q[Restore origin as puppet]
    Q --> R[Offer military governor]
    O -->|Yes / no restoration| S[Resolve recruited-general fates]
    R --> S

Loading

Important source entry points

The most useful files to start with are:

• common/on_actions/cge_gameplay_on_actions.txt — capture, daily processing, weekly POW tick, state-control refresh.
• common/scripted_effects/cge_core_effects.txt — capture registration and slot removal.
• common/scripted_effects/cge_operation_effects.txt — starting/canceling prisoner operations and trial setup.
• common/scripted_effects/cge_daily_effects.txt — operation timers and completion effects.
• common/scripted_effects/cge_prisoner_effects.txt — POW pools, recruiters, and division creation.
• common/on_actions/cge_postwar_on_actions.txt — peace hooks.
• common/scripted_effects/cge_postwar_effects.txt — complete postwar state machine.
• events/cge_postwar_events.txt — all postwar player decisions.
• common/scripted_guis/cge_ui_scripted_gui.txt — UI button behavior.

Repository notes

Several files are intentionally very large because they act as generated lookup/compatibility tables rather than hand-authored gameplay logic, especially cge_pow_templates.txt, cge_character_registry.txt, the portrait/trait resolvers, and runtime portrait localisation/GFX files. See docs/UI_AND_CONTENT.md before editing those files manually.